The children are over, it's great to have them, it's Xmas after all...
No presents this year, sorry kids...
They're used to it. But they're over and of course I've got to feed them, from an ever diminishing stash of groceries, - enough, as it were, to last me a week if I ate lean, now enough to last me until tomorrow morning. And no budget to replace them.
The son, sleeping on the living room floor surrounded by unpacked boxes, the daughter just swinging by to check up, games of Scrabble, Chess, conversation...
The conversation, it only ever goes so far. There is the Great Wall: Between parents and children, I am, I fancy, more liberal than most, more truthful, less bullshit, better advice, we can talk about women, men, drugs, still there is that wall, we each draw it around ourselves, me, you, the places we don't share, we need this, but we isolate ourselves...
Breakfast for the boy, bacon, eggs, waffles, I've found the old waffle iron in the locker, the apartment fills with childhood smells, we laugh and reminisce about when I'd make chocolate chip waffles for the kids, only, maybe, they weren't chocolate chips, they were little mouse turds from an old roommate of ours...
An old plate, found in the locker, the boys childhood plate, for me, only 10 years ago, for him, half his life:
8-13, his plate, by assignment, he recognizes it, goes through a few brief moments of remembering...
It's not important, this lack of food thing, I've been here so fucking often before, I need to sort through some of these boxes, find some shit to sell, start the big downsizing, how can I have this much crap? Really? And a 1/4 of it isn't mine, it's the kids, their childhoods I'm hanging on to, even if I manage to empty the locker there will still that stuff that needs to be saved, future heirlooms, I am cautious about throwing their stuff away, because - a mobile childhood saw that mine was discarded, and I'd be curious to see some of my old favorite toys.
The boy and I make a trip to the locker, fill the LadyJeep, a few discoveries, I'll share when I unpack, repack, there are more boxes of photos (sorry Breony, not that box but I'm getting closer), the living room now full, maybe 30 boxes, books, knick-knacks, objects of inspiration, art supplies, time now to sort, sell, donate, repack, repeat.